SPECIAL FOCUS RUSHAD EGGLESTON’S UNIQUE JAMES EHNES ON ON FIDDLING CELLO CASE—AND ITS CONTENTS BEETHOVEN’S QUARTET NO. 13

MATT WEHLING An American Bow Maker in Paris

THE COMPOSER- PERFORMER Contemporary Voices in the Grand Tradition

LUIS LEGUIA’S JOURNEY From Casals to Carbon Fiber

PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA On artistic principles, interpretive freedom, and recording the music that needs her most

June 2016 No. 254 StringsMagazine.com A STREAK OF INDEPENDENCE Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja on art, interpretation, and musical commitment

By Laurence Vittes JULIA WESELY A STREAK OF INDEPENDENCE ou have to be Orchestra (Sony), reveals answers to her mad to make internal dialogue. “Which piece should I ONWARD TO OJAI music,” says vio- record?” she asked herself. “How much does A few days after our interview, Kopatchins- linist Patricia this piece need me?” kaja was named music director for the 2020 Kopatchinskaja And fnally, her Take Two CD (Alpha) of 23 edition of the Ojai Festival. I contacted festi- as we talk about short duo pieces plus Bach’s D minor val artistic director Thomas W. Morris to find her approach to Chaconne, has a long, revealing subtitle: out how Ojai connected with Kopatchins- her craft. “It’s not a profession—it’s a day and “Duos with Different Instruments from “Y kaja. He told me he had known her for a few night existence; it’s living in a dream.” On her 1,000 Years of Musical History for Young years from her recordings, which meant storybook journey from rural to People Aged from 0 to 100.” Kopatchinskaja music by Bartók, Peter Eötvös, Faradzh concert stages around the world, violinist, dedicated the CD to her nine-year-old Karaev, Ligeti, , Prokofiev, composer, and entrepreneurial force daughter: “Dear Alice, come with me, I will Stravinsky, and —all Kopatchinskaja, known commonly as Pat show you together with my musical friends composers who would fit in at Ojai. Kop, makes her musical experiences as per- many little duo pieces from our musical soul- sonal as her travels. As she demonstrates on globe,” she says in the liner notes. Then he heard her live, in November 2015, three new recordings, she believes in her proj- But the three recordings aren’t enough to playing the Beethoven Concerto and the ects as a principle of life, and commits herself defne her 2015–16 season. She’s also tour- premiere at the same con- without compromise. ing and working on Ligeti’s Kurtag Frag- cert, in Saint Paul with the Saint Paul Kopatchinskaja’s recording of Schumann’s ments, as well as concertos by Michael van Chamber Orchestra. Violin Concerto (along with the Fantaisie, der Aa, Sofa Gubaidulina, and Holliger. It “Her explosive energy, utter fearlessness, Op. 131, on Audite release : has also been announced that she will serve and awesome musicianship were infec- Complete Symphonic Works, Vol. IV), with as music director of the 2020 Ojai Music tious,” Morris says. “After spending time conducting Cologne’s West Festival. with her, there was no question she had German Radio Symphony Orchestra, puts I reached Kopatchinskaja by phone in to be a music director of the Ojai Music her in the company of colleagues like Carolin Houston during a weekend of performances Festival.” Widmann, Isabelle Faust, Rachel Barton of the Schumann Concerto with the Houston Pine, and Baiba Skride. Holliger, who frst Symphony, conducted by Andrés Orozco- conducted the concerto with , Estrada. says Kopatchinskaja is “uncompromising to show off a great soloist. It’s and sincere, does what she believes in, and Why record the Schumann Concerto? revolutionary,’ he said, ‘equal to the has a sensitivity for Schumann’s world that Because it’s not Brahms, not Beethoven, so I concertos of Beethoven and Berg.’ Still is not accessible to everyone.” can’t just play with my eyes closed. It’s been a there are only 19 recordings of it today discovery, a very uncomfortable one actu- (and one of those by a cellist). What’s ally—you have to know how it was composed, the problem? at what time in Schumann’s life. It was one of It has a difficult beginning—it feels at times his last orchestral works. He already was suf- like a bird that cannot fly, with broken fering from symptoms of his cerebral disease, wings, and also like a poet facing death, It’s about speaking and had difculties hearing and understand- trying to carve in stone some archaic music to the listeners so that ing speech. Only a few months later he would about his lost soul, maybe all lost souls. hear the voices of angels and devils, and the music appears music similar to the second movement of his Why did you decide to perform the in their imaginations new Violin Concerto, which he said was sung Schumann Violin Concerto with to him by ghosts of Schubert and Mendels- the Houston Symphony? as the interpreter’s sohn. Clara [Schumann] and [Joseph] I played my first Stravinsky Concerto with personal view. Joachim didn’t understand this music and [Houston Symphony music director] Andrés didn’t want it to be published. Orozco-Estrada in Graz, Austria; I admired his energy onstage. He was very attentive, When the Schumann was finally and we communicated well together. I love published in 1937, Donald Tovey his kind of making music, which is what wrote of its ‘immensely deep and true the Schumann needs. It is very difficult to personality . . . and inexhaustible accompany. Many orchestras don’t have much Her startling rethink—in terms of style, vein of sublime melody, profound and experience with this piece—me neither!— tempo, and mood—of Tchaikovsky’s Vio- rich harmony.’ In a conversation I had so even more than normal, it’s about lin Concerto with fellow free spirit Teodor with Holliger, he called the concerto discovering together how to understand the Currentzis conducting his MusicAeterna ‘far more than just a violin concerto music and tell it to the audience.

18 June 2016 / Strings StringsMagazine.com WHAT SHE PLAYS

VIOLIN: Giovanni Francesco Pressenda 1834, Torino

BOW: Tourte “for most, but not all, recordings.”

STRINGS: D’Addario Kaplan, Larsen, and Thomastik-Infeld Dominant, are “all strong”—but for the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky CDs and the Mendelssohn video, coming soon on ARTE with MusicAeterna and , she used Gamut gut strings. JULIA WESELY

Why did you decide that Tchaikovsky’s vibrato—it’s about loneliness, and losing When you attend a play, for example, you hear Concerto needed you? yourself in a space so wonderful you can the director’s view, whether it’s Shakespeare Because I’m still struggling to fnd my own whisper. It’s about speaking to the listeners in costumes of our time, or diferent spaces personal way of reading it. [Currentzis and I] so that the music appears in their imagina- and times. In classical music, however, it’s found there was a tremendous similarity at tions as the interpreter’s personal view. been prohibited to think like that. It’s like one point to a French song from Tchai- we’re in a robot world in which everyone has kovsky’s youth, with a text that speaks about Where do you find the courage, and to achieve a certain level of playing, which is a mysterious secret. It asks, “Where are you the justification, to develop such a polished, shiny, perfect, beautiful—and my love?” and we came to understand that profoundly personal view of a well- that’s it. Everything else is considered a dis- the concerto is not about thick sound and known piece like the Tchaikovsky? turbing element. But geniuses like Beethoven

StringsMagazine.com Strings / June 2016 19 LEILA NAVIDI and Janacek broke the rules. They did not illustrations, plus essays about each Is there also a practical message for conform with tradition or even with their duo. What inspired you? young musicians? time and, in doing so, opened new parame- As I wrote in the notes, I often feel so lonely on The most important thing is to tell your ters. Tis is the art that has value to me. tour as a soloist, so for encores I began to col- story, to not be ashamed of what you feel or lect and play duos, just for company. From this understand, and to not be afraid of the great What are your principles for the art habit grew a repertoire, and finally this CD pieces. you create? with duos coming from a thousand years of Te process of searching is the most precious musical history. Where did your fierce streak of light in an artist’s existence—it is the center of I also thought, so many violinists play the independence come from? our art, our core. Every single piece requires a same Wieniawski and Vieuxtemps encores; it If you think of Moldova, where I was born, diferent interpretation, a way of playing, to can’t be that classical music ends with the squeezed now between Romania and the point where there are no generalized lega- last century. Tat way it’s not art—it’s not Ukraine, for so many centuries it had no tos or spiccatos. Each piece needs its own book, even a museum—just reproductions. identity. rewritten, destroyed. Take risks and be curi- In this small, weak country, people ous. Be wrong, because wrongness is impor- What message do you hope to inspire? learned to have their own principles, learned tant. Mistakes onstage can be the price of Opening up the idea that music gets its power how to think independently, and to build searching. from being something you cannot express in opinions based on their own experiences, words—that this power is in everybody. When refections, and views. In addition to the unexpected musical you make music, it opens your soul, and as It happens with every piece I play: I don’t riches, your Take Two CD is packaged much as you give, you receive. It’s also about think in terms of interpretation—I try to with dozens of photographs and freedom and independence. fnd my own connections.

20 June 2016 / Strings StringsMagazine.com

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